Shinran 親鸞
(May 21, 1173 – January 16, 1263)
was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino (now a part of Fushimi, Kyoto) at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period. Shinran was a pupil of Hōnen and the founder of what ultimately became the Jōdo Shinshū sect in Japan.

Shinran was born on May 21, 1173 to Lord and Lady Arinori, a branch of the Fujiwara clan, and was given the name Matsuwakamaro.

Shinran ki 親鸞忌 （しんらんき）Memorial Day for Saint Shinran
Goshoo-Ki 御正忌 Memorial Services at Temple Hongan-Ji
Betsuji Nenbutsu-E 別時念仏会 Nenbutsu prayer Service for Shinran Shoonin
Otorikoshi 御取越 （おとりこし） "Passing into the New Year"
November 22 till 28. 28 is the death memorial day.
(November is now "early winter" season, this might be confusing. But here we deal with the old lunar calendar.)

南無阿弥陀仏
The Amida Prayer, Namu Amida Butsu
Buddha Amitabha vowed to save all beings, even those who have committed serious transgressions. This vow prompted Saint Shinran, the founder of the True Pure Land school of Buddhism, to write,"A good person will be reborm;
how much more so the evil person." . The Amida Prayer

Shinran : The Founder of the Jodo-Shinshu Buddhism:
His Life and Legacy
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, till May 29, 2011

A preeminent work in the Shinran exhibition is "Portrait of Shinran" (1255). It depicts an 83-year-old Shinran sitting on an animal pelt, an accoutrement of itinerant priests that allowed them to sit anywhere to dispense their doctrine. Such aspects of quotidian life were distinctive of new Buddhist portraiture and were no doubt indicative of the religion practiced among the people rather than that practiced in cloistered confines. Such portraits are concerned with likeness and prone to distortion.
One leaves these exhibitions with similar thoughts on religions.source : Japan Times

This haiku has the prescript, "Zenko Temple." Shinran was the founder of the Jôdo shinshû branch of Buddhism, Issa's sect. When he visited Zenkôji, Shinran planted the branch of a pine in a large pot in the main hall-- a plant which, evidently, was still alive in Issa's time, over 500 years later.
See Issa zenshû
(Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1976-79) 3.352, note 4.

On the way, when Shinran had to go to exile in Echigo in 1207, there was this pine where he sat down to rest, along the "beach road" 浜街道. There was a whole pine grove at the time of Sain Shinran.
The tree is maybe 500 years old.

There is another legend about a growing walking stick told by Yanagida Kunio.

takezue 竹杖 walking stick of bamboo

In Hyogo, 兵庫県, Itami 伊丹町at the temple 妙宣寺 Myosen-Ji around 1355 Priest Daikaku 大覚僧正 (1297 - 1364) of the Nichiren sect planted his walking stick into the ground.It became bamboo, but a special sort called sakasadake 逆さ竹 "upside down bamboo", with its branches hanging down. A kind of hachiku 淡竹 bamboo.

A similar legend is also told in 新潟 Niigata at temple 西方寺 Saiho-Ji about the Nichiren priest 親鸞聖人 Saint Shinran. sakasadake 逆竹 Sakasa-Dake, "weeping bamboo"

There is another legend about a growing walking stick told by Yanagida Kunio.

takezue 竹杖 walking stick of bamboo

In Hyogo, 兵庫県, Itami 伊丹町at the temple 妙宣寺 Myosen-Ji around 1355 Priest Daikaku 大覚僧正 (1297 - 1364) of the Nichiren sect planted his walking stick into the ground.It became bamboo, but a special sort called sakasadake 逆さ竹 "upside down bamboo", with its branches hanging down. A kind of hachiku 淡竹 bamboo.

A similar legend is also told in 新潟 Niigata at temple 西方寺 Saiho-Ji about the Nichiren priest 親鸞聖人 Saint Shinran. sakasadake 逆竹 Sakasa-Dake, "weeping bamboo"

When Shinran passed the village of 笹子村 Sasagomura in the North he heard a story from the villager 作太郎 Sakutaro. In the old pond of 吉が窪 there lived a Yokai woman named お吉 "O-Kichi" who could take the shape of a poisonous snake and came to harm and haunt the villagers. So Shinran begun to chant the 阿弥陀経 Amida Sutra and begun to write 南無阿弥陀仏 the name of Amida and 六字 the Six Words on small pebbles and threw them into the pond.In no time the woman was relieved from her past sins and could go to paradise.Since that time small pebbles are found at the side of the pond..More about the power of Rokuji http://fudosama.blogspot.jp/2016/06/rokuji-myo-o.html.